Decomposition
by thepensword
Summary: It starts with Shigaraki Tomura's hand on his wrist, middle finger raised just slightly above his skin. It starts with Shigaraki Tomura's voice in his ear, words like poison in his veins. And so begins the slow decay of Midoriya Izuku.
1. Decomposition

**Warning: this is hella angsty and hella dark. Just so you're prepared. TW for blood and emotional abuse.**

 **Also, this is only part one. There will be a sequel. The sequel, you will (probably) be pleased to know, will be significantly happier.**

 **EDIT 10/19/17: Fanfiction decided to take every italicized word and make it not italicized so that's great. It's fixed now. Thanks, Fanfiction. I love it when you screw with my formatting.**

* * *

decomposition — dee-kom-p _uh_ \- **zish** \- _uh_ n

noun: to break up into pieces; to decay.

* * *

It starts with a little boy and his dreams.

"All Might is so cool!" cheers Kacchan, waving his fists in the air. Izuku nods enthusiastically, because it's true. All Might is very cool.

"When I grow up, I'm gonna be a hero," he says.

* * *

It starts with his mother's arms around him, her cries in his ear. "I'm so sorry, Izuku," she says, and his heart plummets.

* * *

It starts with a name.

"You can read it like 'Deku'," says Kacchan. "That means useless." Everyone laughs and Izuku wants to cry, but he knows if he does it will only prove Kacchan's point, so he bites his tongue until it bleeds and tries to pretend he isn't hurt.

* * *

It starts with a friend turned against him, standing over him with smoke coming from fists and burns and bruises littering Izuku's body. "You're weak," says Kacchan. Izuku's lip trembles and he feels his heart shatter, and when everyone leaves he sobs into the dirt.

He'd only wanted to help. All he's ever wanted to do is to help.

But the world is not kind to people like Izuku, who put others before themselves and who are prepared to be broken in body and spirit.

Izuku feels the weight of his bruises and screams and screams and screams.

* * *

It starts in these places, each a seed planted in his heart. It starts there, but it begins, in truth, with an outstretched hand and gleaming eyes between greasy, too-long bangs.

"The world's not fair," says the voice that grates like broken glass.

Izuku nods.

In doing so, he unwittingly signs a contract he wishes he'd never signed.

* * *

It begins with Shigaraki Tomura's hand on his wrist, middle finger raised just slightly above his skin. It begins with Shigaraki Tomura's voice in his ear, words like poison in his veins.

Izuku's dreams topple from the shelf like a snowglobe knocked carelessly with an elbow. They fall in slow motion, building momentum, and in this moment they hit the ground. And, like a snowglobe, they shatter.

Glass is strewn across the ground. Glittery liquid laps at his toes.

And so begins the slow decay of Midoriya Izuku.

* * *

Izuku holds his hand out to the light and watches the glinting of the knife. It gleams, like a star, and it's fascinating.

Izuku moves through the darkness, poison leeching from his eyes, and plunges the knife into thick, soft flesh.

Red blood drips from the blade, sticky and wet and bright like poppy flowers. Izuku lets it run across his fingers. He tastes it; it's an odd taste. Metallic. It tastes like death and pain.

Izuku is numb.

* * *

In the night, Izuku curls up on the old, worn mattress and stares upwards. It's dark, here, but for the moonbeams that seep through the hole in the roof that he's never bothered to fix.

Izuku raises his hands above him and inspects them. They're meticulously clean, scrubbed raw with soap and water, scrubbed until they hurt and the skin turned pink. They are clean, clean, clean.

Izuku inspects them in the moonlight. They're stained with red; they're covered in dirt. Shadows pool under the fingernails.

He pulls them close against his chest and closes his eyes. His heart beats against his chest.

A tear falls from his eye, glistening for a moment in the moonlight, crystallized by the nighttime, before disappearing into the mattress and forming a spot of darkness by the side of his face.

Izuku is numb, but a small part of him is eternally screaming in pain.

* * *

"We're attacking UA," says Shigaraki. "We're gonna kill All Might."

Izuku says nothing. The piece of him that's still a child pounds its fists into the walls and sobs.

Izuku bows his head.

* * *

Fire fills the air. Smoke curls around him, like fingers brushing against his skin.

Izuku shivers, despite the heat. Steam and dust coat the inside of his mouth, tasting like ash, tasting like metal, tasting like blood.

The boy with the pale hair holds his hands against Kurogiri's body and threatens to blow him up.

Izuku stands and watches.

* * *

All Might does not die.

* * *

Shigaraki bleeds on the floor. He screams until his throat is hoarse, hurling curses at anyone in the vicinity. He rages, he whines, he cries like a child.

Izuku stands off to the side and bears it.

* * *

Bandaged fingers reach for his skin. Izuku very carefully doesn't flinch.

"Why didn't you do anything?" asks Shigaraki, manic. His eyes gleam behind his bangs and his teeth shine in a cruel, cruel smile and Izuku wonders how he ever thought of the man as a friend.

"You could have done something. You could have killed those kids. But instead we lost ."

Four fingers dig into his arm. The fifth hovers dangerously above it.

"I could kill you. Right now, I could kill you."

Izuku closes his eyes.

"Speak, damn you! Say something or I will kill you!"

 _Do it_ , thinks Izuku, and doesn't say a word.

* * *

Shigaraki doesn't kill him.

* * *

Izuku curls up on the floor with his knees pressed against his chest. He shivers, naked in the darkness of his room, in the shadows of his cage.

He holds his arms out and inspects the scars dotted along them. They are varied and many. They line his entire body.

He traces a finger along the freckled scars on his legs. He imprints a constellation, skin pressed white under the pressure, and watches it slowly fade into nothing.

Izuku thinks of the pale-haired boy. He sees flame and rage and red eyes that burn like embers, boring into his face. He thinks of lips pulled wide over bared teeth, shouting in a familiar voice.

Shigaraki yells something intelligible in the bar. Izuku flinches and buries his head in between his knees.

He puts a vise on his heart and tries to forget about the pale-haired boy.

(He fails.)

* * *

Stain is poison. Stain is conviction.

Izuku stands opposite him in the alleyway. Shadows ripple between them.

Stain flicks his tongue out and sighs, the breath grating on the way out like sand, like glass. "Who are you?" he asks.

Izuku slowly pulls a knife from the holster pressed against his side. He inspects it; it's sharp.

Stain throws back his head and laughs and laughs. "You're no hero," he says. It's not a question. "Did Shigaraki send you?"

Izuku nods once. Stain laughs again.

They tense as one; coordinated, they move to strike, like two vipers twisting around each other in a deadly dance.

A figure in blue bursts into the alleyway, ice spreading across his path. The boy on the ground makes a noise of distress and Izuku pauses.

He holsters his knife and slips into the shadows.

Shigaraki won't be pleased, but tonight is not the night.

* * *

The pale-haired boy slams him into the ground so hard that a small crater forms. Izuku chokes on his own breath and ends up inhaling the heat from the boy's explosions.

Something snaps inside his chest. A rib, probably. And a heart.

" _Fucking stay down_ ," roars the boy, inches from his face. His breath is hot against Izuku's skin.

Pain, and a memory.

 _Kacchan_ , mouths Izuku, voiceless. The boy— _Kacchan_ —doesn't see it, blocked as it is by the metal of his mask.

The fight moves on.

* * *

Kacchan is raging.

Tied down like a wounded animal, voice hoarse from shouting, eyes filled with flame, he screams and rages and curses at the gathered villains in the bar.

"Join us," says Shigaraki.

" _Fuck no_ ," replies Kacchan.

* * *

The red eyes roam the room, angry, cornered, wild.

They skim over Izuku and then latch on.

Izuku isn't wearing his mask.

"Deku?" breathes Kacchan.

The door explodes under the force of a powerful fist.

" _I am here_ ," says All Might, righteous vengeance thrumming through his every word.

Izuku slips back into the shadows.

* * *

Izuku is captive.

He is crumpled on the ground, forearms braced against the dirt. He's trembling, moments from collapsing.

Izuku coughs and taste blood. On his hands, his arms, his face: blood.

The sky is red in the sunset and all Izuku ever sees is blood.

He's surrounded. The heroes ring around him, watching, waiting, ready.

Izuku can't fight anymore.

 _Get up_ , says Shigaraki's voice in the back of his mind. _You'll never be useful if you can't get up_.

He's exhausted. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

He wants to close his eyes and sleep. He wants to never wake up. But sleep brings nightmares, pain and blood and flashes of fear, and Izuku always awakens with mouth agape, screaming soundlessly into the cold emptiness of his room.

"Surrender," says All Might, voice surprising in its gentleness. "Please."

 _What will become of me_ , thinks Izuku.

 _What will you do with me_ , thinks Izuku.

 _What do I have to gain?_ he wonders.

 _What do I have left to lose?_

Izuku lets his head fall so that his forehead is pressed against the dirt. He moves his hands to cup the back of his neck.

 _I surrender_ , he mouths into the earth.

No one hears.

* * *

Hands on his wrists, on his shoulders, on the back of his head. Hands pulling knives from here, and from there, and from there as well. From his boots, from his belt, from his pocket, gleaming metal shards of the half-life he's led.

A room. Plain, white, empty. The lights above, utilitarian and brutal, flicker occasionally. Metal cuffs, icy-cold against his wrists.

"Midoriya Izuku," says the policeman.

It's the first time he's heard his name in years.

Izuku bows his head and cries.


	2. Equilibrium

**Warnings: murder, kidnapping, blood, abuse, contemplation of suicide, self-hatred**

 **I'm sorry the next one will be happier I promise. I started to write this "part two" and then I was like well dang. Izuku needs a lot more time to recover than I thought. Guess it's a three-parter now.**

 **Also, this is technically not supposed to be a chapter two, but it's own separate fic. However, fanfiction doesn't let me make series like ao3 does so I'm posting it here.**

* * *

 **Equilibrium**

* * *

equilibrium — ee-kw _uh_ \- **lib** -ree- _uh_ m

noun: a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced; the mid-point of a reaction before the downfall or ascent.

* * *

The white walls of the room wrap around Izuku, like he's trapped inside an egg, or a tomb. His skin is pale beneath the artificial white lights that shine down from above, harsh and industrial-quality. He inspects his arms, freckled and pitted, and counts the scars as the clock ticks seconds in the hallway outside.

The door opens with a bang. Izuku tries not to flinch. He looks up and is greeted with the sight of the black-eyed police officer.

"You have a visitor," says the officer, and steps aside.

The woman is short and round, with pleasant features and forest green hair. Her eyes glint wetly as they stare into his, and they are so, so familiar. _Painfully_ familiar. They are the eyes he sees when he looks in the mirror, his eyes, but without the shadows. The eyes from his childhood, before everything crumbled to pieces.

"Izuku," gasps the woman who is his mother.

Izuku forgets how to breathe.

* * *

She's crying. They both are. Her fingers are on his arm, tracing those hideous, hideous scars, and her face is so terribly full of pain. Izuku wants to dig his nails under her skin and pull all that pain out, but he can't. He can't.

"Who did this to you?" chokes his mother. "God, who could do this to my beautiful, beautiful boy?"

Sickness coils In Izuku's gut, dark and writhing like a snake.

 _I'm not him,_ he wants to say. _I'm not the son you remember._

She reaches forward and pulls their faces together, until their foreheads are touching. Her breath is jagged and gasping, wetness dripping from her eyes to land, glistening, on the metal tabletop.

He wants to pull away. He wants to tell her, warn her. He is poison, dark and evil, and if she gets too close it will infect her. Her veins will turn black, her eyes will hollow, her skin will wither, and slowly, slowly, she will fade into nothingness.

He is broken, and scarred. His heart is pitted, shriveled, wrapped in darkness.

"My poor, poor, beautiful boy," she murmurs again.

He is not beautiful.

He is a hideous monster not fit for the light.

* * *

All Might's hand is heavy on his shoulder. He's sure it's meant to be comforting, but it feels like a chain, a shackle like those on his wrists and ankles. All Might, huge and god-like, All Might with his gleaming blue eyes and shining smile and booming voice.

When Izuku was young, he would have been trembling with excitement, overcome with joy. When he was young, he would have fallen to his knees, arms grasping for a pen and some paper, mouth spewing meaningless words.

Once, he had looked on All Might with admiration. Now, though, he just feels hollow.

"Come on, my boy," says All Might, proud and strong. "Let's get you home."

And Izuku still wants to fall to his knees. He is still trembling.

But it's not with joy, or awe. It's not hero-worship, or admiration, or ecstatic disbelief.

Izuku's blood runs cold with fear, cold like the metal clamped around his wrists and ankles, cold like the room he'd been kept in for the days and days since they caught him.

Izuku is terrified. He's always terrified. And the awful thing is that there's absolutely nothing he can do about it.

* * *

Izuku sits on the bed. It's plush, and warm. It feels like a cloud.

He hates it. Hates it because it feels so alien and yet so familiar, like a long forgotten memory or the trailing whispers of a song barely recalled.

"Are you alright there, my boy?" asks All Might, huge in the doorway, blocking the hallway light. Izuku nods once, curt and rigid.

All Might sighs, deep and heavy like a gust of wind. "Okay," he says—even though of course it's not okay, nothing's okay, everything is in pieces and it's all slowly falling apart more and more and he's spiralling and the darkness is pressing in and—

The doorway stands empty, All Might's steps receding down the hallway.

Izuku sags. Slowly he drops to the bed, as if lowered on strings, and curls up with is back to the wall. His eyes flick from the open doorway to the barred window, and his fingers drum against his knees.

Everything is so foreign. Everything should be right, and yet it all feels wrong.

He'd dreamed of this. For years and years he'd dreamed of this, dreamed of being saved, but it's too little too late and he knows he's beyond saving. This life slips over him like an ill-fitting shoe, pinching and narrow and confining and so, so uncomfortable.

Izuku presses his fist to his mouth and bites down on his lip until he tastes blood, trying to stop the trembling. His eyes burn but he keeps them open, afraid to let his guard down for even a second.

It's wrong. It's all wrong.

A sob claws its way up Izuku's throat, a wild, silent beast.

It deteriorates from there.

* * *

Kacchan sits in front of him, red eyes burning into his skin. "You're not dead," he says.

Izuku looks down and away.

"Where were you?"

He doesn't answer. He can't. His tongue feels glued to the roof of his mouth, even with Kacchan's fire and Kacchan's fury before him.

"Damnit, answer me, Deku! Open your damn mouth and say something!"

And Izuku wants to.

But he can't.

* * *

"Who is he?" whispers the girl, brown eyes wide as her gaze follows him. Her friend, tall and blue-haired, makes a humming sound in thought.

"I heard the teachers apprehended a criminal," says the boy. "And that All Might's supposed to be watching him."

Izuku's eyes glue themselves to the dirt path before him. His heart beats loudly in his ears, like the heavy pounding of a drum, and his pace quickens. He'd come for the clean air, for the open expanse of the outdoors, for the blue of the sky, and All Might had let him, as long as he did not leave the area. Now, though, he wishes he'd stayed indoors.

"Why's he by himself then?" asks the girl, sounding worried. "Should we do something?"

The boy's feet crunch on the ground as he steps forward. "Hey!" he calls. "Hey, stop there!"

Izuku clenches his hands into fists. Sweat beads in his palms and his breathing grows ragged, the edges of it scraping in and out of his lungs like frayed cloth or shattered glass. _Go away,_ he thinks. _Please, please go away._

He's a wild animal, locked in a cage. His keepers watch from all angles, and there is no escape. Curious onlookers poke and prod and try to make him dance, and when he falls they laugh and laugh and it's been like this for _so long, so long, and he hates it, sometimes he wishes Shigaraki had killed him ages ago—_

Cloth wraps around him, stopping his movement and obscuring his sight.

"Let's go," says Eraserhead, voice stern, and Izuku has no choice but to obey.

* * *

The world is blue and silver in the pale moonlight. Izuku sits on the rooftop and watches UA slumber.

A breeze ruffles his hair, too-long but clean, cleaner than it has been in a long time. It smells like almonds, like the cream-colored shampoo All Might keeps in his shower. It's a bit strange, Izuku thinks; in his memory, shampoo always smelled like lilacs.

(His mother still smells of lilacs, and whenever the scent wafts his way the tears come unbidden. It's a painful smell, painful and familiar like the smell of rice cooking or tea brewing on the stove.)

Izuku stands and walks to the edge. His toes hang out over the drop and he spreads his arms wide and thinks about jumping.

 _Would it hurt?_ he wonders, _would it be slow? Or would it feel like flying, and then release?_

The concept of death should be freeing. In death, no one can hold him and no one can hurt him. But death isn't freedom: it's a cage.

In death, Izuku will not have the wind in his hair or the stars in the sky. He won't have the subtle scent of almonds or the pink bursts of cherry blossoms in the early spring. Death holds no sunrises, no grassy hills, no private forest paths.

Izuku exhales deeply and steps away from the edge.

* * *

" _Say something!_ " yells Kacchan, voice breaking. "You're useless! Weak! All you can do is get yourself kidnapped and now you won't even _defend_ yourself?! _Answer me, Deku!_ "

Kacchan's fist blazes through the air, bursting with sparks, and Izuku sees red.

The world flashes away; white noise fills his ears, shrill and loud and roaring like the crashing of waves or the swift descent of a ruined airplane. He can't see, can't think—he just moves, pulling and twisting and pushing and when his senses return, he's on top of Kacchan, knee pressing against his back and hand pressing his face into the dirt. His heart is pounding, and everything is horribly, horribly silent.

Izuku freezes.

"Deku, what the—" Kacchan bucks him off and he falls to the ground. " _What the fuck."_

 _I'm sorry,_ pleads Izuku. _I'm sorry oh god I'm so sorry I'm sorryI'm sorryI'msorryI'msorryI—_

Red hair and hardened skin bulldozes into him from the side and Izuku's world flashes black and white. The other boy crashes to the ground, air gasping from his lungs at the force of it.

"Aah," wheezes the boy, and clambers to his feet. "You okay, Bakugou?"

"Shut the fuck up," says Kacchan, and then they're both moving towards him and Kacchan's eyes are burning and the world is spinning and something inside Izuku _snaps._

Blood roars in his ears. The beast inside crawls its way up his throat and fights and tears and _breaks_ and—

Electricity sears at his wrists and Izuku goes down hard.

* * *

"I need to understand," says All Might, voice soft from across the table. "Please help me understand."

Izuku says nothing.

"If you won't talk to us, we can't help you," continues All Might. "I know this is difficult and you've been through a lot, but…" he trails off, waiting.

Izuku nails dig into the palms of his hands, so hard that it hurts. They're all the same, the heroes and the villains, all threats. They'll hurt him and use him and cast him away when he's spent.

 _I'm sorry,_ he thinks, and doesn't say a word.

* * *

(He's young. He's afraid. The man's grip is rough against his harm, and it hurts. He doesn't want this. He never wanted this.

"Go on," says the man, gesturing towards the woman they'd captured. "Kill her."

"No," says Izuku, trying to wriggle away. "No, no, I won't."

The man leans close, breath hot against his ear and smelling of alcohol. "Yes, you will, or I'll make you scream until your lungs give out."

Izuku wants to cry, wants to run, wants desperately to escape and go home. Instead he watches the woman sob into the floor and watches the knife in his hand glint in the dim lighting.

"Come on, brat," says the man. His fingers are vices around his arm and something snaps as he squeezes.

Izuku screams and plunges the knife into the man's eye.)

* * *

Kacchan has a black eye and a broken arm. The other boy has bloodied lips and a fractured rib.

Izuku's hands, pale and clean and smelling faintly of lemon, are stained with the blood of all the things he's done. The heroes surround him, large and looming, and he knows that he's going to die.

"It's useless," says Eraserhead dully. "The kid won't talk."

"Please," says All Might. "We won't hurt you."

Izuku won't meet his eyes.

He knows it's a lie.

* * *

(Shigaraki is furious.

"You little _brat,_ " he rages. "Ironfinger was one of our best men and you just _ruined_ him." He pauses, a knife-smile spreading across his face. "And now you're going to _pay_."

His fingers close over Izuku's shoulder.

All five of them.

Izuku's skin splinters and he screams and screams and screams.

"I'm sorry," he begs as the pain burns and burns and blood pools on the floor. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'msorryI'msorryI'msorryI—"

" _Shigaraki Tomura!_ " shouts Kurogiri and separates them.

Izuku falls to the floor, broken.

"I'm sorry," he sobs, nose filled with the scent of his own blood.

" _Shut up!_ " yells Shigaraki.

Izuku does as he's told.)

* * *

"I hope you understand," says Eraserhead, tone severe. "We can't allow you free range after this. You severely injured two of our students and we can't let this go unpunished."

Izuku stares at the floor, eyes wide. A single tear glistens, crystalline, and makes a small dark spot on the wooden floorboards.

 _I'm sorry,_ he mouths.

No one notices.

* * *

His mother runs her hand down the skin of his cheek, her touch soft and warm. The bed dips beneath her weight and the air smells of lilacs and baked goods.

They do not speak.

Her fingers trail down his arm and rest on the metal encasing his wrist. It hurts to look at, hurts to touch. The shackle is a loss of freedom, and he hasn't had much freedom to lose in a very, very long time.

"I'm so sorry," says his mother after an eternity has passed. Her voice is thick with tears and Izuku cannot meet her eyes.

 _I'm sorry, too,_ he whispers soundlessly into the night after she leaves. But, of course, no one hears.

* * *

All Might sits opposite him at the kitchen table.

"I want to help you," he says. "Please let me help you." He pushes something across the tabletop and Izuku looks up.

A notepad and a pencil.

The intention is obvious; if Izuku cannot speak, perhaps he can simply write out what he cannot say. But the difference is not that great, and Izuku finds himself unable to lift the pencil.

All Might sighs.

"Let me tell you a story," he begins. "About a boy who wished to be a hero."

* * *

 **Leave me a comment with your thoughts!**


	3. Reconstruction

**This one is significantly happier than the other two, and, remarkably, I have no warnings for you, other than a blanket statement about manga spoilers and a word of caution about potential typos. I edited it one time and did so after midnight.**

 **Enjoy.**

 **Edit 11/18/17: hahahaha it did that thing again where it erased all my italics wHY**

* * *

 **Reconstruction**

* * *

reconstruction — ree-k _uh_ n- **struhk** -sh _uh_ n

noun: to rebuild; to heal

* * *

The thing about Izuku's life is that it is overwrought with change.

The change is never gradual, never slow. It is rapid, violent, giving him whiplash and sending him reeling.

So it is only natural that this change, too, should come as sudden as every change before.

* * *

It starts, and ends, with All Might's eyes staring into his, fingers pushing a notepad towards him. With All Might's voice, low and gentle but oh, so serious, telling him the story of a Quirkless boy who dreamed and dreamed. With a twisted, hideous hole beneath the hero's shirt, with the pain and vulnerability of the great man who Izuku had once idolized.

* * *

It starts, and ends, with Izuku's answer or, perhaps, his lack of one. With his eyes downcast and his shoulders shaking. _I'm so sorry_ , he wants to say, but it's not the same as before. He's hurting, and the pain is familiar, but for the first time in years he is hurting for someone else's sake.

Pain is awful, but even this is better than the icy numbness that had been locked around his heart.

* * *

It starts, and ends, with a quiet acknowledgement and a gentle, blooming trust. The next day, Izuku awakens and finds himself drawn to the notepad. His fingers, scarred and twisted, wrap around the pencil, and in the next moment he is frozen. He doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to say.

He hasn't had a voice in so long. How do you speak when your words are like stones cast over a pond, sinking to the bottom to lie among the gravel below?

* * *

It starts, and ends, with an unspoken word.

* * *

 _Why?_

* * *

It ends here, with shaky handwriting on lined yellow paper. It ends here, with the clattering of the pencil as it lands on the floor.

It ends here, but it starts once again.

And so begins the reconstruction of Midoriya Izuku.

* * *

"Why?" reads All Might, voice soft and trembling. He sighs like a mountain and runs a hand over his face, and Izuku caves in. It was the wrong thing to say. He should never have written it, should have stayed silent.

A gentle hand on his shoulder interrupts his thoughts. Izuku looks up into eyes that gleam blue like electricity and a face as wizened and kind as an oak.

"Because I want you to heal," says All Might. "Because I can tell you are hurting and I am hurt in turn when I watch you."

Izuku stares. His mouth opens and closes and no sound comes out. Slowly, tentatively, he reaches out one finger and taps the paper again.

"You are not a bad person, Midoriya Izuku," declares All Might, tone humming with intensity and grip tightening. "I've seen you, and the way that you are, and I know that you are not evil. You are broken, but not irreparably. You still hold the pieces."

He leans back, a small, kind smile gracing his features, different from the wide grin he perpetually displays. "You are broken, but not destroyed. It is my job to make you whole again."

Izuku bows his head and cries.

* * *

"Hey," says the girl with eyes that sparkle like the sun. It's frightening to look at her; she reminds him too much of what he might have been.

He says nothing. His fingers twist nervously in the hem of his shirt.

"I saw you the other day," continues the girl, sitting down beside him with no apparent fear and watching him intently. "But Aizawa-sensei came and took you away."

Izuku remembers; it had been only the start of a series of mistakes.

"If I'm honest, I was kinda afraid of you." Izuku flinches but the girl doesn't _sound_ like she's afraid. She even throws back her head and lets out a breathy laugh, as if the concept is ridiculous. "But I've seen you with All Might-sensei, and he seems to like you. And, well, if All Might thinks you're not a danger then who am I to say anything different?"

It makes sense, in a bewildering, strange way. Izuku finally turns his head just slightly, just so he can see her out of the corners of his eyes. She returns the gaze and beams at him.

"You wouldn't be here if the teachers thought you would harm us," continues the girl confidently, "but no one wants to approach you after Bakugou...well, you know."

He does know. Izuku cringes and looks away again.

"I don't blame you for that. Bakugou's kind of a jerk. Honestly, we've all been wanting to punch him for a while, but most of us have to been too scared. But he definitely deserved it."

Izuku exhales slowly and reaches a hand into his pants pocket. With shaky, nervous fingers he withdraws his notepad with its single word and flips to a fresh page.

 _Why are you here?_

The girl laughs, and it sounds like music. "Because," she says, like it's the simplest thing in the world, "you seem like someone who doesn't have anyone to talk to."

* * *

The girl's name is Uraraka Ochako and she is his salvation.

Everything about her is bright, from her smile to her eyes to the way she talks. She never comes too close, never drifts too far, always carefully respecting his boundaries. She'll talk and talk and talk, but she never pushes him to answer, and he is content to listen.

One day, when the sun is high above, Uraraka appears at All Might's door with a friend in tow.

* * *

"This is Iida," says Uraraka, smiling.

Iida bows, hands straight like boards against his sides. "Iida Tenya," he introduces formally. He pauses for a moment, mouth set in a frown, before forging bravely onwards. "I must admit I have some apprehension on this meeting, but Uraraka assures me that you are at least safe, even if she cannot promise that you are trustworthy. I would greatly like to be able to assess you myself, and to provide support if it proves necessary."

Izuku stares, jaw hanging slack. Behind Iida, Uraraka grins and sends him a thumbs up.

 _This is a terrible idea. They will betray you, like everyone does. And even if they don't, you don't deserve their kindness._

Izuku thinks of Shigaraki's hand outstretched, inviting words a balm against his tears. He thinks of Shigaraki's welcome, his generosity that had swiftly turned to poison.

(He thinks of All Might's hand on his shoulder, the kindness in his features. _"I want to help you to heal,"_ and _"My job is to make you whole."_ )

Izuku opens the door to his room wider and lets them in.

* * *

There's a growing feeling, inside Izuku's chest, in the hollow cavity that had once held his heart.

It's hard to identify; it burns with familiarity, but every time he tries to grasp it it slips between his fingers, running away into the wind like grains of sand or pieces of glass, glittering and shining and swirling upwards to become the stars.

It's hard to identify, but it feels like many things. The sound of Uraraka's laughter, the intense caring in Iida's tone, the gentleness of All Might's touch, the softness of his mother's hand when she runs it through his hair. It's hard to identify but it gleams like sunshine and smells of lilacs.

It's a candle, or kindling, an ember he'd thought extinguished once again pulsing with...with…

(With warmth.)

* * *

It is entirely by accident that he finds her.

"It's just surveillance," says Aizawa, words slurred and disinterested. "All Might's busy, so you're stuck with me."

It's not surveillance, because a little girl runs into him with arms bandaged and eyes quivering with fear and Izuku sees himself as he was when he was young. Her tears are his, her pain the same that had ripped through him for the majority of his life.

"Eri," growls the masked man, hand outstretched. "Let's go."

Izuku looks down at the girl, who shakes and shakes and holds onto his clothes like a lifeline and trembles with pure terror. He reaches out to touch her bandaged arm and Shigaraki's fingers brush over his skin like ghosts.

Aizawa steps forward, capture weapon rising. "Midoriya," he warns.

"Eri, we wouldn't want anything bad to happen, would we?" says the man, words hissing like poison and turning Izuku's veins to ice. "Children. So unruly." This he directs towards Aizawa with a shrug of his shoulder as if to say, _What can you do. They're so hard to control._

Izuku has spent most of his life under someone else's control. He feels Eri's pain in his gut, and it's a visceral, rabid thing.

"Alright, boy," commands the man. "Hand her over."

Eri lets out a choked sob, and Izuku lifts a hand to cup the back of her head.

* * *

("Shut up," snarls Shigaraki. "Just shut up, you useless, good-for-nothing _leech_. " His foot connects with the back of his head and Izuku curls into a ball.

Or he's crying in his room, unable to stop the loud, painful sobs, and then a villain stands over him with irritation on his features and drives burning fingers into his gut.

Or he's sent on a mission for the first time, and instead of killing the victim he's begging for help, and his handler is grabbing him by his hair and squeezing his throat until he can't even breathe.

Or he's a little boy who stares at his sullied, bloodied hands and swears to never speak again.)

* * *

"Hand her over," says the man, and fire swirls in Izuku's gut. He stands, and pulls the girl up with him until her feet are dangling in the air and the heat of her tiny body is pressed into his chest.

Izuku breathes in deeply and summons his demons.

* * *

"No."

* * *

The fall is dramatic and violent. There is fighting, and injury, and pain. Izuku sees none of it, except for in the eyes of those who stumble back with clothes torn and faces smudged with dirt and soot.

But none of that matters.

What matters is that Eri is safe.

(What matters is that, watching her, a piece of Izuku starts to heal.)

* * *

Words come slowly, like sandpaper against his throat. And yet, slowly but surely, they do come.

The first thing he says is 'no', to a man who personified his tormentors.

The second thing he says is 'sorry', to a woman he'd caused pain.

"Sorry," whispers Izuku, quiet, trembling. His mother gasps, one hand reaching to clutch at her chest, the other reaching to stroke his face.

"Izuku," she says, voice choked and tearful. "Izuku, Izuku, you have nothing to be sorry for."

He does, but he is exhausted from just that word and cannot reply. She doesn't seem to care, instead reaching out with both arms and pulling him close against her, cradling him like she used to when he was young. It's awkward, now that he is taller than her, but they ignore this.

"I love you," promises his mother. "I love you more than anything. You know that, right?"

He closes his eyes and nods.

"And you trust me?"

 _Of course._

"Then trust me on this." Her hands cup his face and turn it towards hers, gentle fingers brushing his eyelids open so that he is looking at her. "You have nothing to apologize for. Never, ever think that any of this is your fault."

Izuku bites his lip against a sob and taps her chest. Then he curls his fingers into claws and presses gently.

"You didn't hurt me. No, no, Izuku, look at me." Her hand catches his and she kisses each knuckle, lips brushing like whispers against his scars. "You never hurt me. It was _them_ who did the hurting, when they took you away."

The tiny, smoldering fire in Izuku's heart grows. It's painful, clawing at his throat like some sort of beast, but it is a good pain, like he hasn't felt in years.

Izuku curls up against his mother and cries.

(Another piece, slowly, gently, heals.)

* * *

Toshinori watches him sleep, curled around the young girl he had saved. Her hands clutch at his shirt, and his arms cradle her, fingers still tangled in her hair.

Toshinori smiles.

It's time.

* * *

For the boy who is strong. For the boy who is good. For the boy who has killed and hurt and been hurt. For the boy who was shattered and painfully pulled the pieces back together.

For the boy who, even after everything, remains good. Remains kind.

A single, gleaming hair. A mantle passed from the Symbol of Peace to the boy who had once been a villain.

* * *

"Are you sure about this?" asks Torino.

Toshinori nods. His eyes, hooded and dark, catch the light and for a moment shine like sapphires.

"He's the one."

Torino sighs, weights on his shoulders. "I hope you're right about him."

"I hope so too."

* * *

All Might had told him many things, but he had not told him everything.

Now, though, he does. It makes Izuku sick. It makes Izuku elated. It makes him giddy with knowledge and fearful of this trust.

And that's when the shoe drops.

* * *

"I'd like for you to be my successor," says All Might, and the world spins out from under Izuku's feet.

"Why?"

A small smile, bittersweet with memory.

"Because you are stronger than anyone I know."

* * *

It ends (and begins) in the same place that it started. With a flame-eyed boy and his anger, and his trust.

"Deku," he says, hands curled into fists. Red eyes stare down at his feet.

Izuku stiffens, turns.

"Deku, I—"

A breath.

"I'm sorry."

The words are shallow but the meaning is not. And Izuku, broken, shattered, scarred Izuku, hears and understands and finally, fully heals.

"Okay."

* * *

Izuku is a boy who was broken. He is the toppling of a vase, the leaking of blood from a wound. He is the button dropped and lost between the cracks.

But he is found again.

The feeling in his chest is a flame, of warmth, of love, of trust. Because he is broken, but he is strong.

And never did he truly fall apart.

Izuku is a 'Deku' who means 'never giving up'. He is a hero who has been tried by sword and flame, who has been discarded and beaten and lost and who has risen above it all, still strong, still kind.

Izuku is a great hero. Izuku is only a child.

Izuku is loved.

But, most importantly:

Izuku is healed.

* * *

 **See, I told you I'd make it all better.**

 **How many parallels to Decomposition did you spot?**

 **This is the last part, therefore finishing up this story. Thank you for reading. Please leave a review and tell me what you thought.**


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